Yet Another
One-hand Keyboard

What is this?

It's a pocket-sized, wearable
keyboard supported and operated with one hand. It produces all
the usual characters with relatively few keys which are pressed in
groups, i.e., chords. Production models would include (at
least) a miniature joystick or other mouse-like abilities.

What is it good for?

The user need not sit at a
desk. He can stand and walk around. This makes it a good
input device for portable computers, especially ones with head-up
displays. It's also good for presentations with large
projection screens. There are a lot of other uses as well, e.
g., palmtops.

Why not just use voice for
input?

Voice technology is expensive
and not accurate enough for general text entry. It's obtrusive,
insecure, sensitive to noise and, of course, not private.
Besides all that, computers with voice as the primary input would be
even more annoying than cell phones.

How fast can you type on the
prototypes?

I have never been much of a
typist but as slowly as I type it's still faster than I can usually
think what to say. Using the program "gtypist,"
with its default texts, I recently timed myself at 26.5 wpm seated at
a desktop QWERTY board and 27.6 wpm, standing, with the prototype
shown in figures 1-3. [update Nov 2002: my one-hander
speed has accidently climbed to 33 wpm]

How fast will I be able to
type on it?

Probably faster than I can.
Assuming that you too are not a touch typist on the qwerty, I would
guess that you too will be about as fast on the portable one-hander
as you are on the qwerty. I would expect that if you're really
fast on the qwerty then you may lose some speed on the portable
because you have freed one hand. Actually, since you can now
stand up and walk away from the qwerty, one might say you have freed
your whole body.

How hard is it to learn?

It's much easier to learn than
touch typing on a qwerty but harder than two-finger hunt and peck.
I think I had memorized all the chords after a week or so of
intermittently playing with my first working unit. After that I
quit using my qwerty all together and never missed it. Of
course the chords soon became automatic and unconscious. I make
a poor example because I was changing the prototypes and the chords
as I learned them.

How many people have used this
type of one-hand keyboard?

As I write this, I'm the only
one. I like it but skeptics might reasonably question my
objectivity. I'd like to get more people involved.

Previous chording keyboards
haven't been very popular. How is this one different?

One big reason is that the
typing fingers don't grip the unit and don't participate in retaining
it within the hand. Trust me; this makes it much simpler to
use. It's hard to type with fingers that must grip something at
the same time. That's why the only portable one-hander you can
buy at present, as far as I know, has a big, ugly, wrist strap .
Another reason is that the fingers are never far from their
relaxed positions. They don't have to curl tightly, which
quickly becomes tiring. This keyboard is small enough to be
mostly hidden by the hand so it's not so geeky. Since there's
no strap, it can go in and out of a pocket quickly. When you
actually get one in your hand you see it's great fun to type so
casually and with so little effort.

Will it work with gloves?

Probably,
if the gloves are thin. In cold weather it might be better to
use a mitten or bag that goes around both the (naked) hand and the
keyboard. Or just build it with key guards and keep it in a
coat pocket while you use it.

Does anyone have IP rights on
it?

Who are you?

I am John
W. McKown, a retired guy living in Arizona. Long ago I studied
electrophysiology but I have worked mainly as an electrical engineer
(signal processing and wireless networks).

What's your plan, John?

Along with many others, I think
the absence of adequate input devices has been holding back a huge
market for more portable computers. I'd like to see this kind
of one-hander developed, productized, manufactured and available.
This web site is part of an effort to interest enterprises
which have those capabilities. If that effort fails I might
start selling crude kits myself. I might even decide to invest
in some engineering and sell finished units. I'd like to make a
few bucks from this somehow because it has been a lot of work.

It's only when you get one of
these units properly fit and in your hand that you experience their
true beauty: the simple pleasure of typing so easily and casually. I
want to make that experience easy for potential licensees. I
want technical people inside big companies to be able to proceed
without needing a lot of prior paperwork and permissions. This
website goes further, however, and enables the whole world to
duplicate my prototypes and, no doubt, improve them. I believe
that today's hobbiest might well turn into tomorrow's advocate,
co-developer or investor. Since my patent only applies in the
US, someone somewhere else in the world might even develop and sell
similar units without involving me at all. That's OK: it
would help to demonstrate a market to potential investors. Sooner
or later, I'm hoping, someone will want to license a product for sale
or production in the US.

When can I buy one?

I don't know but when I do I'll
certainly announce it here. Check the news link above.

Suppose I want to evaluate a
prototype like yours. What help do you offer?

I've prepared a downloadable
information kit which has everything you need to quickly duplicate
the prototypes shown on this website. It includes a bill of
materials, source and executable firmware, part numbers at Digi-Key,
instructions, diagrams, helpful hints, etc. This kit is aimed
at folks who have done a little soldering somewhere along the line.
It should get techs and engineers off to a flying start.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not a
lawyer but this is the legal situation as I understand it. If
you do the work outside the USA, you can proceed as if my patent
didn't exist until you want to sell within or import into the US; for
that anyone would need a license which of course I would provide very
affordably (unless I had already sold an exclusive license to someone
else). If you are within the USA, its territories or
possessions and you want to evaluate prototypes covered by the
patent, then you need a license. This is not a problem -- I'll
grant you a free license to build and use prototypes for evaluation
purposes on your way to the download.

The firmware included in the
download lets an Atmel AVR '2313 microcontroller interpret chords and
talk to a PS/2 port. It's about 900 lines of rough and ready
assembler code that I'm releasing to the public domain with
(hopefully adequate) disclaimers. Software professionals might
be offended by it --sorry-- but it works and it might even be useful
for designs of your own. Take it, go and God bless. No
promises. Note that US patent 6429854 is NOT being
released to public domain and I reserve all rights under that and
related patents.

If the download doesn't take
you as far as you want to go, I'm available for consultation with
your techs, M.E.s, industrial designers or whomever.

We see some possibilities
here, John. We'd like to talk. How shall we contact you?